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Volume 9 / Issue 27 / August 2019 Case Studies on Mass Atrocities and Survival in the Modern History of Ukraine Guest Editors: Frank Grelka and Yuri Radchenko Online Open Access Journal of the Center for Governance and Culture in Europe University of St. Gallen URL: www.gce.unisg.ch, www.euxeinos.ch ISSN 2296-0708 Center for Governance and Last Update 31 August 2019 LANDIS & GYR Culture in Europe STIFTUNG Table of Contents Editorial: Towards a Historiography from the Bottom up – Studies on Genocide and Survival in Modern Ukrainian History by Frank Grelka and Yuri Radchenko....................................................................................3 No Novel for the Ordinary Men? Representation of the Rank-and-File Perpetrators of the Holodomor in Ukrainian Novels by Daria Mattingly...............................................................................................................12 A Chance for Survival: Trapped within the Confrontation between Unified State Political Department and Torgsin by Mykola Horokh................................................................................................................40 „Eastern Operation” of OUN(b) and the Anti-Jewish Violence in the Summer 1941: Smotrych and Kupyn Case by Andriy Usach..................................................................................................................63 Women’s Body as Battlefield: Sexual Violence during Soviet Сounterinsurgency in Western Ukraine in the 1944-1953 by Marta Havryshko.............................................................................................................85 Landscape, Culture, Identity: Repatriation of Crimean Tatars and the Processes of Constructing the Place by Olena Sobolieva ............................................................................................................114 Narrating trauma: literary strategies in Ukrainian survivor literature of the second half of the 20th century by Natalia Dovhanych........................................................................................................141 Publishing Information / Contact..................................................................................156 Euxeinos, Vol. 9, No. 27 / 2019 2 Editorial: Towards a Historiography from the Bottom up – Studies on Genocide and Survival in Modern Ukrainian History n his book Ukraine and Russia: Representa- Lands in the 1930s-1940s.” The event was or- Itions of the Past, Serhii Plokhyi concludes that ganized in December 2016 by the Center for “Ukrainian historians have yet not managed Interethnic Relations Research in Eastern Eu- to create a master narrative of Ukraine’s Sec- rope and the Historical School of Vasyl Karaz- ond World War.”1 A centennial after the fall in Kharkiv National University and support- of the Romanov and Habsburg Empires and ed by the Ukrainian-Jewish Encounter (UJE). the creation of the first independent Ukrainian The articles provide substantial responses to Editorial national state, this volume assembles an only the recent social paradigm of historiography recently emerging critical body of scholarship and its potential for Ukrainian Studies. The discussing the exceptional era of violence in contributors especially address the impor- Ukrainian lands2 from below, whether under tance of multiethnicity and multiconfession- totalitarian systems, in domestic spaces, or in ality for violent experiences in Ukrainian commemorative discourses. In this special is- lands: the story of violence against Ukrainian sue of Euxeinos, Ukrainian historians of the women on behalf of Soviet counterinsurgency younger generation investigate the legacies agencies in Western Ukraine in the immedi- of violence wrought by state and paramili- ate postwar years, the role of local Ukrainian tary warfare far beyond the years 1941 to 1945 villagers engaging in the killing of Jews in the and focus on the way in which the memories Podillya region during the Holocaust; the re- and experiences of violence over the 20th cen- turn of Crimean Tatars after the collapse of the tury are constructive elements to a common Soviet Union and before the Russian invasion Ukrainian identity from the Carpathians to of the peninsula in 2014; or the commemora- the Crimean Peninsula. The articles address tion of victimhood and perpetration in both the impact of genocide and survival on normal the Holodomor and Holocaust as represented residents, and question what it takes to write in Ukrainian literature. Apart from decenter- an integrated narrative of modern Ukraine’s ing towards imperial violence, transnation- imperial and nation-state history rather than ality is the second methodological challenge asking about how suppression was organized to ethnic, racial, social and class hierarchies by ruling elites, whether they were Soviet-Rus- raised in all articles. Accordingly, the contrib- sian, Soviet-Ukraine, or German. Engaging utors describe various marginalized actors to with these issues from a new perspective is explore how past experiences are commemo- fundamental to a more complete understand- rated and transformed into political action in ing of how past experiences of violence contin- Ukraine, on the one hand, while on the other ue to shape Ukraine today. hand they disclose formerly concealed topics This issue assembles selected contributions of to the public discourse about their own coun- young Ukrainian historians at a conference on try’s history. “Mass Violence and Genocides in Ukrainian Just like neighboring post-imperial societies similarly affected by Soviet and Nazi hege- 1 Serhii Plokhy, Ukraine and Russia: Represen- tations of the Past (Toronto: University of Toronto monies over East Central Europe, modern Press, 2008), 296. Ukraine is part of what historians have labeled 2 Prominently on the outstanding scale of violent agendas, however widely concealing native Shatterzones of Empires formed by nationalist collaboration in Ukrainian lands: Timothy Snyder, and socialist revolutions, civil warfare, system Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin (New York: Basic Books, 2010). changes, displacement, dekulakization, col- Euxeinos, Vol. 9, No. 27 / 2019 3 Editorial lectivization, forced migration, and the Holo- domestic and political context of the region. caust.3 Against this background, authors sug- Yuliya Yurchuk pointed to recent discours- gest patterns in the legacies of various forms es about the assessment of various roles that of state and non-state violence and address the Ukrainians and institutions in Ukraine have impact of violent experiences in the larger so- taken in history as heavily influenced by the cio-economic context for various marginalized confrontation of the Soviet postcolonial narra- Ukrainian social groups with great empathy. tive with the counter-narrative about the mem- More importantly, the collection pays tribute ory of the OUN-UPA defined by the national to residents of Ukrainian lands taking various view of martyrdom and victimhood during roles, either as victims, perpetrators, bystand- the war.4 Primarily for the sake of delegitimiz- ers, partisans, refugees, displaced persons, or ing the myth of “The Great Patriotic War” and simply as Soviet citizens from diverse ethnic, legitimating the sovereignty of the Ukrainian religious and social backgrounds. The subjects Republic, this nationalist re-evaluation of wa- include diverse perspectives – either of wom- tershed events in Ukrainian lands over the en in partisan warfare (Marta Havryshko), or past hundred years stemmed predominantly minority groups (Olena Sobolieva) in remote from post-socialist discourses since 1991. As Holocaust communities (Andriy Usach), or Wilfried Jilge pointed out when analyzing as reflected in commemorations of survivors textbooks for Ukrainian schools in the wake and perpetrators of the Holodomor and the of that history-making from above, the legacy Holocaust (Daria Mattingly & Natalia Dovh- of the nationalist military organization OUN- anych). Mykola Horokh’s essay discusses an UPA became a core element for a post-Soviet institutional history scarcely reflected in his- Ukrainian state ideology. That discourse dom- toriography exemplified by the Torgsin (the inates not only Ukraine’s foreign relations with State Society for Trading with Foreigners) Russia and Poland, but also Ukrainian politics – stores which the Soviet state spied on and until today, although it represents only one stole valuables from, and which simultaneous- side of the story.5 As predominantly western ly provided chances for survival for the same historiography has testified and Andriy Us- citizens during the Soviet man-made famine ach provides evidence for in this volume: The in Ukraine. Certainly, this collection does not regional struggle of Ukrainian nationalists propose a master narrative for Ukrainian his- under the leadership of Stepan Bandera, An- toriography, but it does reposition relevant ex- drii Mel’nyk or Roman Shukhevych was not periences at the center of Ukraine’s connectiv- 4 Yuliya Yurchuk, “Reclaiming the Past, ity with internal and international debates on Confronting the Past: OUN-UPA Memory Politics and Nation-Building in Ukraine (1991-2016)”, in Modern Ukrainian Historiography. Julie Fedor, Markku Kangaspuro, Jussi Lassila, In the process of shaping the country’s histor- Tatiana Zhurzhenko (eds.), War and Memory in Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus (Cham: Palgrave ical memory in a plausible and authentic fash- Macmillan, 2017), 111-112. ion, interest in the legacies